Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton, the British pioneer of Pop art, was a radical thinker as well as an accomplished artist. Highlighting the artist's work and process, this exhibition catalogue explores the differences between American and British Pop art. Introduced by John Russell, the catalogue features a sixty page illustrated commentary, an exhibition checklist, a selected bibliography, and a brief chronology leading up to 1970, just three years before the catalogue was printed. This excellent primary source provides not only a contemporary critic's viewpoint, but also Hamilton's own thoughts on the development of Pop art right after its widespread acceptance in the 1960s.

Excerpt

Hamilton has always had, as it happens, a most delicate and lyrical fancy: and, with that, a rare tenderness of touch. These traits are masked, as often as not, by his preoccupation with system; but they are very much there for anyone who cares to look for them, and they stand for an element of English reserve which is fundamental to Hamilton's make-up and bearing, no matter how strongly he comes on as the assured technocrat.